Favored Dawgs Have High Goals

WILLIAMSBURG — Top-seeded Georgia hopes history doesn't repeat itself after it didn't win as the favorite in 2001 and 2006.

Georgia's Chris Haack has brought the top-seeded team into the NCAA Division I men's golf championship several times before, and here's what he said it means: Darn little.

Haack has a pair of national titles on his coaching resume. The Bulldogs also were the supposed favorites in 2001 and 2006 and came up short.

"One of the things that these guys realize is that the seeding really doesn't mean a lot," said Haack, whose teams won NCAA titles in 1999 and 2005. "It's you against the golf course. It's not like we're going out there and playing the 32nd(-seeded) team. We just happen to be in the spots that get to tee off first in the pairings."

Thirty teams and selected individuals tee off this morning at Golden Horseshoe's par-70 Gold Course for the first of four days, culminating in Saturday's final round.

The Bulldogs are one of three region champions, along with Tulsa and South Carolina. Seven teams from the Southeastern Conference are in the field, along with five teams apiece from the Atlantic Coast Conference and Pac- 10.

Georgia won five of seven events it entered this spring. Senior Chris Kirk was the medalist in four tournaments during the 2006-07 season and recently received the Hogan Award as the top player in college golf.

"He had a phenomenal year last year and he followed it with an even better one this year," Haack said. "Between he and Brendon Todd, my two seniors, those two guys have played absolutely terrific. I'm just hoping they have one more good week left in them."

One player who says that he has a good week in him is Brigham Young's Daniel Summerhays. The junior from Park City, Utah, shot 60 at Golden Horseshoe last October at the Ping Preview, a fall tournament that allows teams to play the upcoming NCAA championship course.

"Since then, I feel like there's no hole that can't be birdied, there's no shot that can't be close, there's no putt that can't go in," he said. "More than anything, it's confidence. I can shoot low numbers and I have that knowledge that, hey, I can play with the best of them."

Starting on the back nine that day, Summerhays birdied seven consecutive holes and was 8 under through 10 holes. He bogeyed Nos. 3 and 4 to fall back to 6 under, then regrouped to birdie the next four holes.

He left a 25-foot putt for birdie and 59 on the edge of the cup at No. 9. "I had made a lot of putts during the day," he said, "so I can't complain."

Oddly enough, he shot 74-75 the first two rounds of the tournament, then couldn't miss on the last day.

"I knew it could be a good day -- maybe 67, 66," he said. "But I don't think you're ever prepared for something like that, where the putts are always going in. It was just a really, really fun day. I'll never forget it."

Though Summerhays is more accustomed to playing at altitude and in cooler conditions, he said the heat and humidity forecast here this week allow him to warm up and stretch his back more quickly.

Though he is a Utah native, his father was in the Army and was stationed at Fort Eustis in the 1970s, so his parents had a chance to return to old stomping grounds.

"I feel really blessed to be back here," said Summerhays, who shot 63 in the final round of the West Region to qualify for the NCAA field by one shot.

There was no such qualifying drama for Georgia, which won the East Region by a dozen shots and had three of its five players shoot under par. All of which means nothing starting today.

"What you hope for is that all five guys feel good about their game and just go out and play," Haack said. "There's really no strategy involved. It's really about those guys feeling good about their game, feeling good about the golf course.

"In our sport, we can go out there and play great and still not win because we can't control anything anybody does but us. We've just got to go out there and do the best we can and hope it's good enough." *